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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23946730">Carry Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebookhunter/pseuds/Goldragon'>Goldragon (thebookhunter)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>So long ago and out of sight [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Led Zeppelin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, beautiful old men, fictional biography, i don't know what this is, lifelong love stories, morocco 1975, morocco 1994, mythological rock musicians, queer issues, reading into lyrics, soak in the lyrics and let them talk, stuff of legends, to live the dream we've always had, what is this</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:26:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,778</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23946730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebookhunter/pseuds/Goldragon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Concept: Robert's latest album "Carry Fire" (2017) as a full-on assault on Jimmy's heart. </p><p>Robert himself walks us through the song Carry Fire, and the Morocco of dreams and memory Jimmy and himself made their own.</p><p> </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jimmy Page/Robert Plant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>So long ago and out of sight [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Carry Fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/gifts">ledbythreads</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've already sort of written this, haven't I? </p><p>Well, that was months ago. I've learned a lot since then. I've discussed stuff with Leds, listened to more songs, thought things through. I know them a little bit better (the mythological personas and the legend.) I have a bigger, broader picture. </p><p>And so, the first version felt vastly insufficient, and very much mistaken in many ways. </p><p>Mostly, what I'm responding to here, in this series of LZ works, is the whole body of Robert's lyrics, his imagery, his self-referencing, the concepts that endure and/or repeat, how they're used, where, when. The man loves his riddles, but he scatters the keys all around the place. Connections can be made. It's a thrill when you figure out a new one.</p><p>He'd say I'm reading too much into things, of course. That he just throws things together because he likes the sound of them, and sod it. (*He'd be addressing my unconscious form, since I would have fainted and banged my head in the fall. - Stop fucking lecturing me and help me up, old man.) (Try the kiss of life. Certainly not the best way to revive me but it won't hurt...)</p><p>Anyway. That's what he'd say, because that's the kind of thing he says. But that's bollocks, and he knows it. Look at that twinkle in his eye. He knows it, and he knows I know. So let's have fun, shall we.</p><p> </p><p>(The bits of lyrics at the beginning are all from this album, from the songs, "Dance with you tonight", "Carry fire" (d'uh), "A way with words" and "Heaven sent." -- In the text there are further references to these and other songs. -- Achilles' Last Stand most prominently, not so much quoted as channeled.<br/> </p><p>(it goes from 3rd person to 1st to 2nd not at random but almost. Sorry. I have no self-discipline, do I. Uuuuh, let it flow, let it happen? --Hey, constant improv and 30 minute solos. ...They would approve??)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> <em> I sit and wait for you like so many others do </em></p><p>
  <em> Just like they do for me, well so I do for you </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Leave me here alone, for just as long as it takes </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Seasons turn, waiting for the weather to break </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Blowing up a storm now </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Many times I fell from grace </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Seasons turn, once again our world will change </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> All the long goodbyes, all the goodbye songs </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All the love for giving, never really gone </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>  We shared a world forever changing </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Through dancing days and wondrous nights </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I offered up the secret places </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Reveal the magic of the land </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All bound by blood and lipstick traces </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Till time conspired to steal our crown </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> His empire falls, his spell will break </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Once cast aside, his song awaits </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> I’m reaching out for you across the broken days </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All through the gathering years beyond these lonely ways </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Our fields of plenty filled with clover </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So long ago and out of sight </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Coming from the cold, reaching for your sweet embrace </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Now shadows fall, the hour is late </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Still hear your songs, but time won’t wait </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Are the flames still burning bright </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Across the days, across the years </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Reaching out to find you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I put it all behind you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m back again, I know </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> All the time forgiving, never really done </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> And if there’s one more time I can dance with you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Let me dance with you tonight </em>
</p><p>
  <em> If it’s the last chance our hearts will dance into the lover’s night </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Is your heart still warm? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> A little flame, a special place </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> This little light that keeps on shining </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All through the darkness through the night </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That ever more will keep reminding </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Our journey is long, our flame is bright </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Just like, just like, just like I scarred you </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Across the miles i find you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I put it all behind you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Because I’m back again </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m back again, I’m back </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> I carry fire for you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Here in my naked hand </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I bare my heart to you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> If you will understand </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Bring on your late, late smile </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Come on and dance another mile </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>*</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jimmy grits his teeth.</p><p> </p><p>“Robert Plant. You <em> bastard </em>.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>“It’s better.”</p><p>Justin’s exasperate huff at the other end of the line makes Robert chuckle.</p><p>“Oh, pardon me, am I keeping you from more important things then?” asks Robert.</p><p>“Sleeping?”</p><p>Laughs. “You keep strange hours.”</p><p>“No, I mean, in life, in general.”</p><p>Laughs harder. </p><p>“Alright, I shall magnanimously grant you the afternoon off.”</p><p>“Great. I’ll just find seven hundred proposed changes in my inbox first thing tomorrow morning.”</p><p>“Oh, only three hundred or so.”</p><p>A tired chuckle at the other end of the line.</p><p>“Don’t touch a thing, Rob. It’s perfect. It’s done.”</p><p>He smiles to himself.</p><p>“They’re never really done. They just take them off you.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you say that earlier!”</p><p>“Don’t you bloody dare.”</p><p>One last exhausted little chuckle.</p><p>“You’re lucky you’re cute, old man.”</p><p>Robert smiles what he positively knows it’s a pirate’s grin.</p><p>“Justin, my dear, do you want some life advice from this wizened old man?”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Don’t ever call me cute.”</p><p> </p><p>Next time he plays it, he tells himself it’s the last time today. Then he’ll step away and sleep on it, honest.</p><p>Must admit, they’re pretty close. One could even call it finished, and he would be the only one to disagree. He likes how the drum loop takes one right out and away, far away. A journey. The strings quite evoke a single figure walking alone into some primitive, timeless wilderness. Anyone who hasn’t been there will think of sand under their feet. Not packed earth, not cobbles, not rock and dust. Well, it’s not a real place. It’s an exotic recreation; a bit of an adventure, if you will. </p><p>The delicately plucked strings seem to drop into it mid phrase, as if taking up a strand of a thought in the middle of a meditation. Here, it takes a breath - a quiet reckoning. Enters the riff. Now it’s walking. The solitary figure in the night of an imaginary desert has turned on their feet, and walks back to the citadel with a renewed, urgent purpose. </p><p> </p><p>“Won’t ask what you think about it,” says Robert to the quiet green-eyed ghost always hovering over his shoulder. “Since you’ve quite given up on what I do.”</p><p>(Is that a spectral chuckle then.)</p><p>Oh, bloody hell, can’t help himself. <em> So you don’t understand it, but would you at least call it finished? </em></p><p>The green-eyed ghost is a mean, petty little shit sometimes. <em> “Oh, why ask me? Didn’t you want more freedom to go at it your own way? Wasn’t it such a drag having to bend and compromise to someone else’s tastes ? Feeling constrained? My voice too strong, too overbearing? Here’s your freedom, then. Enjoy it.” </em></p><p> </p><p>He’d be royally pissed off with that. <em> “How very bloody dare you! When have I ever…!” </em></p><p>Oh, I know, I know. </p><p>I know. Forgive me. </p><p>It’s been long, and in my mind, sometimes you’re cruel. I suppose I can be quite a heartless monster in yours.</p><p>Oh, Pagey. Up there in his tower, the one made out of stone and riches, and the one made out of glory and everlasting fame. A pair of green eyes glinting with greed. They didn’t bloody call him a dragon for no reason. There he is, curled up on a pile of remasters with the same dangerous glow in his eyes. Hoarding is what he does. Wealth, art, guitars, ladies, record crowd attendances, every bloody suit he ever wore. Now, honors. Finally, finally, full recognition. <em> He was once the greatest of them all. </em> </p><p>When he does come out, he walks like royalty in the world. Fawned at, deferred to, courted, and worshipped. A long queue of petitioners and well-wishers, following in tow for a favor or a grace, a word, a nugget of his wisdom or his mind, all waiting.</p><p>A king, and a wizard. All that power. Music is magic, you said. And you were right. Words and tune to make up a spell. Fashioning, distilling, shaping and mixing soundwaves to create new worlds, different planes of reality, outside of time and consciousness; making the spirit vibrate, causing emotion to happen. A seduction. Warping minds around your fingers, make them willingly become puppets on strings. All the power you give, they give back. And in the space of that feedback, the whole world held its breath for our roar.</p><p>But at a price. Such a slight thing you were, and the magic demanded that you poured every bit of yourself into it, until you almost vanished yourself, until I could almost see right through you. Until you were almost gone.</p><p>Still, you triumphed. Immortal life. It will all outlive you, your work, your spell. It will speak your name to the ages. It will carry on calling out to new spirits and stir up fresh souls. Claim them and possess them and shape their thoughts, their imagination, their own voice. Instill awe and wonder, and communicate a measure of our roar into them. You will speak through their mouths. Long after you’re gone, you will touch them. They will revere you. </p><p>This is power. Very real, and very alive. You made it happen. This crown you wear, you made it with metal distilled from your own blood and sweat. Walk proud. It suits you well.</p><p> </p><p>And yet, it’s not the god or the wizard that I yearn for, it’s not the king that I love. </p><p>That’s why he’s been a special flavour of a pain in the arse this time. With this album, and with this song. This was the wizard’s apprentice at work, you see. It’s a summoning spell.</p><p>A journey. A place. Exotic sounds -you’ll be a foreigner there, its codes and tongues as hermetic and mysterious as the narrow, twisted streets of the kasbah. You go there for the colors and the sounds, the scents, the sun on your back. You’d feel quite the stranger, if it didn’t open its arms so warmly. Maybe you don’t know it, maybe you will never quite understand it or truly belong, but you’re allowed to take it in with every sense, and you’re allowed to love it. </p><p>It’s a physical place, but also, like all journeys, a place of the imagination. Because you came to it with a return ticket, when it’s done, it will become a memory. And in the space between memory and imagination is where this song comes to be. The journey continues. Here’s an invitation.</p><p>It’s not a daytime song. The fresh evening breeze is dispelling the heavy mantle of heat, which made the streets and even the busy market fall dormant. Now drowsy spirits revive, voices and laughter and music rise again for the twilight hour. </p><p>Walk away from the market, where the streets that weave and bend are almost always solitary and quiet. Make your song weave and bend too, and lead you astray. It draws a maze for you to get lost in - forward, then back, retrace your own steps, turn here, now turn again; every street like any other street, and now you’re nowhere that’s real. </p><p>And as you amble on, you’ll find the doors of the houses are all open to let in the evening breeze, revealing glimpses of private worlds, intimate scenes. It’s not polite to stare, but the natter and the laughter and the music draw in the eye and the ear. It’s irresistible. - When you peek inside, you find eyes staring right back at you. They knew you were there all along. Do they not mind? Do they want you to look? - So make it mysterious, make it cryptic, make it intriguing. Pick your words with care. Don’t be too obvious. Make them look twice. If they want to, they <em> will </em> see.</p><p>Now they know where they are. They know what this is. A love song, of course. Sensual, but somewhat stark. It pulses, though. Fire in your hand. - So, not temperate, but restrained. Not quiet, but hushed. - Light up the candles, they will sparkle in eyes that stare long and heavy. Secret lovers biding their time. Make it whisper. </p><p>Make it breathe deep. Like laying your lover down and hearing them settle into it, open their arms to you, anticipate your body. Clothes fall. And here’s the scars. You trace them, retrace them, trace them again. You whisper of them too. You acknowledge them. I see it. I put it here. Here, I marked you. (‘<em> Just like’ </em>- and here, you marked me.)</p><p>Bowed strings enter the dance at the end, swirl around the plucked strings, they revolve around each other, each its own way, dancing. Call and respond. (He’s an optimist, you see.)</p><p>Many peoples across many borders and going back centuries could recognise its cadence and its beat. - Make it timeless. Ageless. Out of time. Like us. What we did, who we were. </p><p>We’re hardly ageless, aren’t we, love.</p><p>Out of time, however…</p><p>I know, I know. One hell of a timing. But what can I say. It’s that old need. Pulsing always, pulling. It’s ruthless. Never cared about right or wrong, cared about nobody else, cared about nothing but its hunger, about feeding. Certainly doesn’t give a damn about timely or inconvenient. It rises, it burns. It consumes. And it torments, and it feels good, feels so good. And it makes one quite ruthless too.</p><p>It’s not always so urgent. You carry it around, dormant, a comforting weight, a touchstone, it grounds you. Sometimes it wakes up, stirs, just to give you a slight nudge. It’s warm then, it’s company. It’s a part of you that someone else put there. It’s a ring on your little finger. A pendant you never take off, warm with your own body heat. And you miss that very unique, specific, irreplaceable kind of joy, of content, the precise breed of <em> alright </em> you can only find with one person in this world. How could there ever be anyone else. The life you’ve had, together. The times you’ve known, the dancing days, those wondrous nights. The steps are always changing: now he leads, now you lead; now it’s not that kind of dance; a stumble here, a slip there, exasperate then, laughing now, but always dancing. </p><p>Other times, it’s not companionable and not comfortable at all. Sometimes it’s a sharp craving, a screaming hollow. It burns you from the inside out. And you can’t hold it back, can’t keep it to yourself. It’s ruthless. - <em> You </em> are ruthless.</p><p>It didn’t simply burst from ember to blaze overnight. It’s been a long time coming. It’s an old fire, you lit it once a long, long time ago. The warmth of it doesn’t fade away, still could burn you badly if you were to bury your hand in it. Grey ashes conceal its minute red heart. </p><p>You don’t want it to die, but neither can you take it with you when you leave. And you must leave. You must. The road is always calling. New voices, new sounds. New bodies. Something else. Something different. On and on and on. Some have a home, you have a journey. That's alright with you.</p><p> </p><p>You wander far, you wander long. You build more fires. You have a knack for it, you thrive on it. Kindling up a spark, a flare rising high. New fire.</p><p>Kindling it, yes. Tending to it, keeping it lit, not so much. It’s the prodigy of it you seek, from nothing to one. Not the hearth, but the naked flame in the night. Not protected, not fed and nurtured. Never tamed. Short-lived, but a thing of wonder, an elemental miracle, primeval magic. A thrill. Born and died wild.</p><p>All your fires die down eventually, you know they will. That, too, is alright with you.</p><p>They’ve all died out, but this one. How? What does it live on? Nobody looks after it, nobody tends to it. But when the wind whispers on it, there it is, under the ashes, a rock that glints red, and breathes, and throws an intense heat. It feeds on itself. What sort of magic is this?</p><p>It’s burnt inside long enough, and you pull it out and open your hand. The ember is ablaze. It hurts like hell. It feels so good. You step outside and scream it out loud. Doesn’t matter that everyone can hear. (Or perhaps it matters very much.) <em> Look, I’m burning. Hear, I’m calling. To the king in his tower, come down, step out. Let me in. I’m back at your feet. I need you. I’m begging. </em></p><p> </p><p>Tried dropping the odd hint over syndicated press.</p><p>Tried throwing intent, meaningful looks at some big occasion or another. Didn’t put much stock on it. It’s never as easy as that. Too much pride on both sides, or whatever the hell it is. That bloody crust you’ve grown all around your bodies. You’re not kids anymore. Desire doesn’t just power through whatever it takes. You’ve hurt. You’re wary. So much that seemed carved in stone once makes you feel uncertain now.</p><p>Could just pick up the phone.</p><p>Oh, hardly our way. Legend makes one a little bit legendary, you see. Bit mythological. When you’re in a story, you become, a little bit, a character. We have our own way, don't we, love. You don't create extraordinary by being ordinary.</p><p>And this is quite an extraordinary story. There are gods and monsters, lions and dragons, towers and crowns, hermits and wanderers. And magic. Alchemy for the modern times. A philosopher’s stone made out of sound and conviction that turns base metal into gold and gives you immortal life. And it’s all true. (Well, mostly.) By any standards, it’s one hell of a tale.</p><p>There’s mysteries and rumors too. Some outrageous, some ridiculous. Many versions of the same story (make a point not to tell it the same way twice.) Riddles in every song. Clues spread out far and wide. Self-referencing, a system half-built, half left to chance, enigmas only those who know can solve. So many secrets. So many distractions. </p><p>So many lies. - Even us, who were gods, who were kings, were never truly free. </p><p>Privileged, yes. That’s what money is, isn’t it? Freedom to fly away to some place where two kings can put down their purple and ermine and emerge like some sort of selkie from that skin as just two nameless boys amid a bustling crowd. A place where nobody cares that the one has an arm around the other’s waist, or that they’re holding hands in the middle of the busy street, or if they pin jasmine blossoms in their hair. All the boys here do it too. Nobody looks. You may even tell yourself that nobody cares. </p><p>But that’s not quite right. They <em> always </em> care. But here, <em> nobody will tell. </em> Who’s going to tell, the rich queer Europeans looking for hash and opium and boys? That place William Burroughs told you about. Land of dreams, alright. - This is still <em> that </em> world. Don’t you dare forget that, ever. Be careful, be discrete. Lock the door, lower the shutters, draw the curtains. For all your money, they’ll look away. They won’t talk. But be very careful not to give them anything to talk about. Don’t put it too clearly in front of their faces. Don’t give them <em> proof</em>. <em> Don’t you bloody kiss his lips where anyone can see you. </em>That’s the deal. It’s the same the world over. Certainly it was then and, in its own way, still is now. </p><p>(Most assuredly, it is for us.)</p><p>So there it was. The dream we’d always had. A dream we used to sing about. And nothing else. All the money in the world couldn’t buy us any more than that.</p><p> </p><p>The dream was something else, we just did not know it. The dream was a lot closer than we thought. It was in the music that we touched it.</p><p>In songs, we did not hide. On stage, we told them, we <em>showed</em> them. Oh, pull a veil of plausible deniability over it, obscure it with a pronoun or a word, throw in a shiny bauble or two to keep them guessing. Be outrageous in their bloody faces, and have fun. In songs, we told the world a hundred times. On stage, we stared at the crowd right in the eye, and <em> lived </em> it. </p><p>Toed the line. Push it, push it. Tempt your luck. Taunt it. How brazen can you get. How specific. </p><p>Well, quite a lot, apparently. There must truly be a cone of power around the two of them, diverting the sight, hushing the talks. </p><p>In the old times, because it was unspeakable. Since they stopped right before too far (as much as they extended that notion), since they were such virile, voracious womanisers, they could get away with bloody anything, it seemed. Nobody asked the question outright, nobody paid the rumors any mind. <em> It’s an act, a show. If it was true, wouldn't they try to hide it?  </em></p><p>And these days, well. A right to your own privacy and all. <em> Nobody’s business. </em> And if that wasn’t enough, you can put the fear of god into them with a look. You’re a vocalist, a musician, not a big brother contestant. <em> Mind your own business. Ask me about the music. </em>And they do.</p><p>It’s a little bit unfair though, isn’t it. </p><p>Is it true then? Is it exactly what it seems? Was it real? - Because, if it was, then it was the heart of it all, where it all truly started, where it all came from. The thread that binds it all together. The key behind erratic movements and cryptic lyrics. The full picture behind many puzzles, the missing piece. <em> Mind your own business? </em>Old man, you’ve been making your business everybody else’s for fifty years in your songs, in your tiffs through the press, every bloody time you were together on a stage. </p><p>
  <em> Fair enough.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So ask me then, if you dare. Ask me who was it that I shared a crown with. Ask me if the whole ‘lover’s night’ thing is a goddamn musical metaphor. Ask me who am I reaching for through the gathering years. Ask me who it is I am vowing to wait for.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Ask me about Rain Song. Ask me about Achilles. Ask me what does it mean precisely “What is and never should be.” Ask me about Whole Lotta Love, if you have the guts. All of them. So bloody many. Go on, I dare you. I might just tell you. I’m old enough not to give a toss. </em>
</p><p>Old enough not to want the hassle too, for that matter. Would there be scandal still, in this day and age? Would there be outrage? A pair of national treasures, aren’t we, sacred relics. Is our legend even ours to set to rights anymore? Would they let us? </p><p>Oh, what’s there to tell right now. Where’s the need to come clean when you currently have nothing to hide. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. It’s what he would say. </p><p> </p><p>But the dream, my love. Such a simple thing. So many take it for granted. Those kids who went there all those years ago, they thought they’d grasped it, that they’d had it in their hand. </p><p>They thought they’d always be able to come back. Those kids, what did they know. Foolish. Beautiful. Intoxicated with that illusion of freedom paid in gold. The illusion of youth and eternity and immortality. What did they know.</p><p>At the foot of the Atlas, far away from all those who thought they knew, we were alone, together, unshackled, free. So free, I existed only because you could see me, only because you could hear me. Because you could feel me, and I you. Not the freedom of kings, the freedom of a pair of nameless wanderers. Remember, Jimmy?</p><p>Going back there as a pair of greying old sods, not so sprightly, not so supple, certainly not so cocksure. Shocked by all that had changed, soothed by all that had not. A small bedroom, white walls, shutters painted blue, pulled down. Once more, no name, no purple, no crown. Two bodies in the dark as the evening falls, two shadows, mingling. Can’t tell them apart. Two spirits. One. And so it was. What had changed, and what changes not. What matters, and what doesn’t. </p><p>Sparkles flying from a small bonfire at the foot of the mountains where dust churns into stone. Sky so black, heavy with stars. The arm of the galaxy reaching above. A pair of kids talking music and gossip. Two old sods quietly beholding, all the small talk exhausted decades ago. Had we really changed all that much? I mean, where it matters. We would certainly recognise them, but those two kids wouldn’t have known us if they’d passed us on the street.</p><p><em> Where it matters. </em>On those nights amidst rock and dust, the pair of old sods looked at each other exactly as those two kids once had. And perhaps they hungered for each other with less urgency, but wasn’t that pull, that need, that joy for having each other very much the same. May not shag like them, but they certainly kissed like them. By all means, old men do it better.</p><p>One thing was quite, quite different: the kids believe they’re eternal and undying. Whereas the old sods, well. They know how the story ends. </p><p>Surprisingly enough, it’s not a tragedy. The kids may not have seen it like that, but that pair of old sods are their storybook happy ending. After many perils and quarrels and woes, and much longing, and much parting, the lovers, reunited again, gazing at the stars, excited about a new beginning for the two of them together. <em> And they lived happily ever after, </em>if you put up the sign here, now.</p><p>Yes, it ended too. No major forces of fate or fortune conspiring to rip us asunder. No terrible blow cracking the ground below our feet. A very different kind of pain. No big fights, just petty bickering that turns sour. When you stop telling each other the little things. When you're not making each other laugh much anymore.</p><p>Why stay here, why live here. We've had some beautiful years. Don't let us allow this to become ordinary. It's run its course. You want to go one way, and I another. We’ll meet again, some other time.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ramble the hell on, then, by all means. Go away. Leave.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>(Was that it then. Is that why. The scar I’m tracing.)</p><p> </p><p>Let me tell you a story, then.</p><p>I travelled long and far, years and years. Made my home in the wind, in the journey itself. It’s what I needed. Who I was. And then one day I found myself standing in the last place where love and music had taken me, and left me, and for the first time I looked around and truly felt like a stranger. Not a traveller on the go, but a foreigner in a foreign land. Felt the pull of the land – I belonged somewhere, and it wasn’t there. So I came home. I came back. And here I am, at your door.</p><p> </p><p>And here you are too, up in your tower. ...Let down your hair? (Ah, it would be good to hear you laugh. <em>See</em> you laugh. That smile of yours. A little bit mine.)</p><p> </p><p>Three times is what you need for a story. </p><p> </p><p>Perils and woes, quarrels and longing, missed chances, wrong turns. It is only so that the lovers may learn one truth that gives everything else meaning: it <em> was </em> true love all along. And it <em> was </em> forever.</p><p>Is your heart still warm. May I?</p><p> </p><p>(The ghost has gone quiet because Jimmy is quiet.)</p><p> </p><p>I can wait, old love. Don’t believe me? I can be humble. It was me who gave up the crown. Stepped into the wilderness, didn’t I, like a ranger. But I’m back again. I’m back, and here’s my plea. From sitting right there beside you on our throne, to blending in with the crowd, one more petitioner, waiting for my turn. Our time. Another season for me and you.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Those kids were so sure, but they didn’t really know, couldn’t really know. They made promises lightly; talk cost them little. They couldn’t yet know life makes you pay for every word; those you speak, and those you don’t.</p><p>As for the old sods, they were returning to a home they were amazed to find still standing. Felt the walls tentatively. Found them solid, but you must always tread with care. So many rooms, so many stairs, so many shadows. A terror may be lurking around every corner. Life is not a game. Neither is love, for that matter. Nothing was certain for those poor old sods, except what they wished for, what they wanted, whom they wanted. But that’s enough. That’s all you need, really.</p><p> </p><p>This old wanderer here, the traveller who’s done travelling, the one who sits by the tower and waits for the season to turn. Wise as he is, once more, he knows not how this story ends. </p><p>He knows what he knows. That age doesn’t cure a fool. That years didn’t make a cynic. That some flames refuse to die. That some loves truly are everlasting. He knows too that nothing worth for winning is ever easy won.</p><p>And here it is, and it is quite simple. I want to go back there with you one last time, where the weary old titan holds the heavens from the earth. Where it was all so stark and clear and quiet, and stripped down of it all, away from the din, we were able to finally hear and see and feel each other as we are. Where we learned for the first time that it was all true. Not a folly and, for a while at least, not just a dream. Yes, we were true. We were real. You and I. We were not made just of wanting and longing. We were made of having and holding, too.</p><p>Let’s go, one more time. Be who we are, in the sun. Our journey is long, and it’s not quite done.</p><p>And so, this song.  A mating call. A humble prayer. A beggar’s offering. All I have to give is this old need. Is it too poor an offering for a king?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I sit and wait for you like so many others do </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Just like they do for me, well so I do for you...” </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Dance with you tonight (2017)</p><p>"Out in the land of neverending,<br/>the rich parade, the roar of life<br/>We shared a world forever changing<br/>Through dancing days and wondrous nights<br/>I offered up the secret places<br/>Reveal the magic of the land<br/>All bound by blood and lipstick traces<br/>Till time conspired to steal our crown"</p><p> <br/>That last line. Blew my mind, set my imagination on fire. </p><p>For the record, I can only think of one person this could refer to, but what the hell do I know. - Can you name another?</p><p> </p><p>I welcome and appreciate comments very much. (I also bite the head off nasty people.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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